Survivor
by masquerade-eco
Summary: Set in the beginning of Jak II. When a young woman becomes a victim of an explosion, medics must replace the entire right side of her body with metal. After months of recovery, her brother convinces her to join a group that fights against the very people who helped to save her life.
1. Chapter 1

Authors Note: Hi everybody! I'm new to this writing thing, and I finally built up the nerve to publish a story... sorry if it's kinda sad but I wanted to write something more serious before starting anything silly!

Chapter 1:

She didn't remember having most of her limbs blown off.

All she remembered was the sound of gunfire all around her, watching the back of a Krimzon Guard Bomb Squad agent, and the Metal Heads slowly surrounding her as she shot at them. Then a brilliant white light flashed, and all was quiet.

She was out for months after her accident. The first one or two, that was the coma; later on, her sleep became medically induced. The doctors and scientists were waiting to see if her vitals could become strong enough for surgery. Major surgery. Where they replaced the bits of her that were gone with metal.

In one of the earlier months, she woke up on her own. Blinking uncontrollably, a soft moan escaped her lips. Her body stung all over. Tears sprung from her eyes as her body began to throb. She heard a voice, muffled, but she was sure it was yelling. Why was it yelling? Don't be so loud. She yelped as something sharp was poked into her arm. Cold, cold fingers crept up her arm, through her veins. Then it was warm, and she slept.

Once it got to the point where they allowed her to wake up and stay up, she did so almost immediately. Blinking through crusted eyes, she felt her arms and ankles bound loosely to the bed she was laying on. A blurred figure sat before her. She felt a hand brush the hair out of her eyes.

"Hey, soldier," he said.

A guttural sound came from her, as she was too weak to form words. Her mouth and throat were dry, so very dry, and she licked her lips to tell the man so. A thick straw poked her lips, and she closed them around the plastic. Just water. She drank the whole glass.

"How are you feeling...?" The man asked. She wasn't sure if she could answer it, so she just shook her head across her pillow. He squeezed her hand gently. "I know it hurts... it will for a while. But, you're here with us, and that the important part."

Her eyes finally adjusted, and the man next to her came into focus. Thin faced, with dark, short-cropped hair. Tattoos. A red uniform shirt. Blue eyes.

She recognized him slightly. Her memory of up to half a year before the explosion was non-existent. The doctors would later tell her it may or may not come back, ever. But she had known him before that, since she was little.

"Brother," she croaked.

He smiled. Turning to the doorway, he spoke to a man that she had just noticed was leaning there. "She remembers me," he said. "That must be a good sign."

"Yes, how touching. Next question: does she know your name? Does she know HER name?" The voice was deep and gruff.

"It'll come to her, in time," her brother spoke. Turning back to her, he said, "Do you remember what happened?"

Before she could answer, however, a medic entered the room and asked for the visitors to leave. "We want to run a few tests to see how well our patient is adapting to her new limbs."

New limbs? Where? She lifted her head as much as she could, but it felt like it was full of water. Slowly she looked down at her body. From her chest down, a crisp white sheet with a red symbol on it covered her body. Her arms were above the sheet, but the her right arm felt funny. Looking closer, she realized what was different.

"W-what?" she groaned, pulling at her restraints. Wiggling her left arm free, she clumsily groped at the metal attached to her body. Her entire arm was metal; not cold, but not the temperature of flesh. Wrenching her other arm- her metal arm- free, she sat up completely and ripped the covers off. She wasn't wearing any clothes, but that was the least of her problems.

Her stomach, across the front and drifting to the right, was metal.

Her right leg, her entire right leg, was metal.

Whimpering, she grasped at what was now her body. The skin attached to her robotic side was heavily scarred. The medic had rushed to the bed as soon as she had removed the covers, her brother snagging the sheet as he popped out of the chair. He began placing it on her exposed body, saying something along the lines of "calm the hell down." The medic was busy bringing her arms back down to the restraints. Her sudden burst of energy was gone, and she was weak again. She succumbed to the straps as she cried.

"Shhh, don't cry, shhh... don't cry over this, little sis..."

And there's chapter one! Hope you all like it! Please review, ideas are welcome! And ideas for other stories you would like to see written as well!


	2. Chapter 2

Authors Note: Hey dudes! So this is chapter 2 of my depressing story! Enjoy!

The next week or so consisted of these episodes, in which she would awaken to find half her body replaced with metal limbs. She continued to sleep more regularly, and after weeks of physical therapy, they deemed her robotic limbs strong enough to carry her to the shower.

Of course, she had two nurse escorts, women, and they guided her slowly to the handicapped shower. It was the only one that had a seat.

They undressed her, and she sat as they bathed her, massaging soaps into her hair, which had gotten long in the months she had spent in the hospital.

"In a few more weeks or so, you might be able to do this all by yourself," one of her assistants said cheerfully as she sat there limply. She kept looking down at her robotic leg, the boot that her foot had turned into. It made noise every time she stepped.

"Will the metal rust?"

"Oh, no. It's a Precursor metal alloy, with no iron, so it will stay completely rust free for as long as you have them. But we do reccomend-"

"So, for my entire life, you mean." She cut the nurse off bitterly.

"Well... yes," The nurse responded, quietly, "but we don't want you to think of this as a hindrance. You can still do anything anyone else can." She changed gears. "But, like I said before, we recommend that you regularly clean and oil the prosthetic joints." She didn't respond.

She was clean, for the first time in months. Her hair dripped behind her, it's dark-to-light brown ombre locks in wet clumps.

On her left wrist, she saw a thin metal bracelet. Her hospital bracelet. Engraved in the silver metal was the Precursor alphabet, spelling out the words "Rivers, Rachyl."

Gazing down at her stomach, Rachyl touched the metal there. It was layered and thinner than that of her arms, so she was able to bend if she needed to. The same went for the makeshift joints in her knee, elbow, wrist and ankle. The gray substance that was now part of her had a golden sheen to it; that was the Precursor part. Her right arm, from the tips of her fingers to her lower neck, was made of this grayish golden metal.

The nurses helped Rachyl stand on her human foot as she cautiously placed the boot down. She had no feeling in these robotic limbs; it was strange to be able to move things you couldn't feel. She had barely any coordination at the moment, even after nearly a month of PT. Someone once mentioned that by a medical miracle, the doctors might be able to make her prosthetic limbs alive with synthetic nerves. Rachyl hoped this was true. She was tired of bumping into things when she couldn't feel where her arm was.

Holding her arms at the elbows, the pair of nurses guided her to the dressing room. It was there that she was patted dry with a towel, and given a loose red tunic and baggy white pants. Patient uniform in the hospital.

"Your brother is in your room, waiting for you," one of her nurses told her. She glanced at their nametags, but the writing was too small for her to see. They guided her back to her room, room 111.

"Good morning," her brother greeted her cheerfully as she sat down on the edge of her bed. The nurses were going to get her brunch; she had spent breakfast in the showers.

"Hey," she spoke quietly.

He watched her closely. "How are you feeling?" He asked.

Rachyl shrugged. "Good enough," she said, her face expressionless.

"The doctors said that they wanted to run a few more tests this afternoon... you're healing well. Granted, you still won't be allowed to leave for another month, at least-"

"Are they going to make it so I can feel these?" Rachyl lifted her right arm limply.

He pursed his lips. "We don't know yet," he admitted. "Like I said, they want to run more tests this afternoon."

Rachyl gazed out the window. This is what her life was going to consist of, wasn't it? She was a lab rat. That's all she was ever going to be. And if she ever got out of this cage, she wasn't ever going to have a normal life.

"How's your memory?" He asked after a minute or two of silence. She glanced over at him and squinted.

"I don't remember what happened, if that's what you mean," she snapped. Then she softened. "But I do remember that you're Hal."

"That's great, Rachyl," Hal smiled, almost sadly.

She brought her right hand up to rub her face. She managed to poke herself in the eye with a rounded metal fingertip. "Shit," she mumbled, bringing her other hand up to massage her face. That's when she felt the scars.

She stopped abruptly. "Get me a mirror," she said quietly.

"What?" Hal asked.

"A mirror!" Rachyl yelled. Her emotions were boiling over. She knew she was being a freak, but she couldn't stop herself from exploding. She was done with all this hospital shit.

A nurse came in with a tray of breakfast foods. They let her eat whole food a week into her recovery.

"Ready for breakfast, Rachyl?" The nurse asked politely.

Rachyl turned to her and asked, "Do you have a mirror?"

The nurse looked taken aback. "Um, yes," she said, tilting her head towards the closet. "There's one on the inside of the door."

Rachyl stood, one hand on the bedside table to steady herself. Stumbling slightly, she hobbled over to the door. Hal stood and offered her a hand, but she pushed it away. Opening the door with her left hand, (the metal on her right was to slippery for a doorknob) it swung open as she pulled it. The mirror on the inside was full body, and it was the first good look she got of herself since the accident.

What she really wanted to look at was her face. Leaning in close, she saw a scar that extended from the bottom of her ear to underneath her eye. Smaller scars flecked the surface of her skin, and her ear was missing chunks.

She looked into her own dark brown eyes and saw the rage burning inside them. She wasn't Rachyl anymore; she was someone else.

A hum in her throat turned to a yell, and she swung her metal arm up and punched the mirror. It shattered, thin shards falling to the carpeted floor. She kicked the door with her right leg, and it broke off its hinges. The nurse had dropped the tray of food and made her way over to her, and Hal had grabbed her hand to pull her away. His grip made her lose her balance and she fell on the floor, where she stopped resisting and tried to figure out what she had done to piss off the universe.

*Author's note: End Chapter 2! Sorry Rachyl's so angsty. I'm trying to set things up for some character development. And for those of you who are like, does this have anything to do with Jak and Daxter? My answer is: at this rate, I'm only going to have them overlap slightly. I want to introduce some more characters and sturf, but right now, unless I come up with better ideas (or a reader volunteers one) it's gonna be mostly Rachyl-centric.

Don't forget to read and review! I would love some more ideas, and pointers in my writing :) thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

A.N.: I have returned with chapter three! Eternal thanks to Ecofreak for reviewing this story :)! without your enthusiasm, I probably would have let this fic die... hope you like it!

They eventually let Rachyl go outside.

Sometimes she would walk around, but, for the most part, she stayed parked on a bench outside the hospital door. Her gaze was trained on the people passing by, and hot flickers of jealousy flared in her chest and throat as she watched these people, normal people, who had everything in front of them, who had average lives. When she was younger, Rachyl had yearned for an exciting, different life, but being half-metal was not what she had anticipated.

Hal told her that a friend of his wanted to meet her once she got out of the hospital. She was curious as to who this person was, but didn't vocalize her thoughts. Meeting new people in her current state of being would be... interesting.

When she went inside for lunch, a note was waiting on the tray in her room. It told her to go to the C-Wing after she ate, that a doctor was waiting there to evaluate her for her next operation. The food on the thin metal tray was light and simple; Rachyl had learned a while ago that her stomach didn't enjoy heavy foods. She had spent a half hour after lunch one day emptying the contents of her stomach into a trash bin; she had been eating a thick meat stew.

The C-Wing wasn't hard to find. Walking down the carpted floor, Rachyl poked her head into the only open doorway in the wing, and saw a small, white-haired man sitting at a table, perusing through paperwork. He looked up when he heard her footsteps. "You must be Rachyl," be spoke quickly. "Come, have a seat."

Without a word, Rachyl entered and plopped down into the seat. The room was plain and white, covered with gray carpet. The table and other furniture in the room, which was only the two chairs they sat in, were made of wood. There were no pictures, mirrors, or windows.

The doctor didn't look up from his papers as he asked her questions. "How is your recovery? Motor skills coming back all right?"

"It would be better if I could actually feel the things I swung around all day," she retorted. Rachyl was already irritated that her surgery had taken so long to be scheduled. Anything more would be pushing her.

He chuckled slightly at her remark, but continued unfazed. "So you want the surgery then. Very much so, I can infer," he looked up from his papers after straightening them out. "I will schedule the procedure for a week from now. After that, if it is successful, your release from our care should be soon."

"It's about time," she muttered to herself, then said louder, "Alright. Is that all you wanted to tell me?"

The white haired man searched her face. His eyes were magnified by large glasses that sat on the end of his nose. He spoke slowly as he continued.

"Just one more thing, Miss Rivers... I was wondering, do you believe you would benefit from therapy? Perhaps a weekly session?"

Rachyl's eyes narrowed. "You want me to see a shrink? No way. I don't need to talk about this." The hostility in her voice was unmistakable. She did nothing to hide her anger anymore; it wasn't worth it. She would end up punching clear through a wall if she kept it in.

The doctor didn't seem surprised at her reaction. In fact, it seemed to him that it confirmed that she needed one. "So, if I scheduled you to come to my office in the city, even once a month, you wouldn't come?"

Rachyl snorted, heat exploding in her chest. Standing up so quickly her chair was knocked over behind her, she threw her hands down on the table. "Who the hell do you think you are!? I don't need a shrink! I'm PERFECTLY FINE!" Her shouts echoed down the empty hallway. Breathing fast, her eyes burned into the man's face. He was slightly taken aback at her outburst, though his eyes never left hers.

He shrugged. "If you feel that way," he said innocently, picking up his papers and heading for the door. "Your procedure will take place a week from today," he reminded her as he left the room.

Livid, Rachyl spun on her heels. Her left hand clawed at her hair, gripping it in a tight fist. A guttural yell resonated in her mouth, and she kicked the chair behind her with her metal foot. It flew into the wall behind her, splintering into bits and leaving a misshapen dent in the white wall. The only good thing that came from all of this shit was that she could destroy things more easily; her metal parts made quick work of wooden things.

Releasing her hair, she spun back towards the door and left the room. Why was everyone out to get her? Why did everyone feel the need to shower her with their pity? She didn't need it! She was strong; of mind, if not of body, and she could handle herself. Walking briskly back to her room, Rachyl kept telling herself that it would be over soon, that she would be free in a week's time. She could go where she wanted and do as she pleased, finally. All she had to do was wait one more week in this miserable place, this cage she had been thrown into.

The week couldn't pass fast enough. Finally on the day of her surgery, Rachyl woke to a nurse entering her room. She was greeted, waited on, and informed that Hal was here for her. She sat up on her bed and told the nurse to let him in. Soon after, he entered, smiling a little as he came though the door.

"Today's the day!" He cheered. "The nurses said something about you maybe coming home tomorrow," he added excitedly. "Are you ready?"

"I'm so freaking ready, you have absolutely no idea," she said seriously. Standing, they made their way to the mess hall, where Rachyl took a fruit smoothie off a table. Sucking it down, they walked silently to room 204, where her operation would take place at ten. It was almost time.

The nurses were already in there, and motioned for her to lay down on the table. Rachyl sat down without speaking; she had stayed silent almost all morning in anticipation of this operation and her freedom.

They placed a mask on her face, pumping a gaseous substance into her lungs, and told her to count down from ten. Her eyes were fixated on the ceiling above her as she spoke. "Ten... nine... eight... seven... si-..." she stopped there as she lost consciousness.

A.N.: There you have it! Sorry if this chapter was a bit dull... I had to power through the boring part so I could set up for a bomb chapter 4! Thanks for reading, and please review with helpful criticism or story ideas! I could use all the help I can get!


End file.
